From clinical experience, movement disorders due to hemiplegia include reduced range of motion (ROM), weakness, hyperactive reflexes, incoordination, spasticity, and synergy patterns. Patients' daily activities are affected since these disorders do not allow patients voluntarily contract a single muscle group.
Conventionally, therapists would guide patients to perform continuously passive movements with bare hands or with assistive equipment. When patients perform continuously active movements, therapists apply adequate resistance or assistance to induce normal synergies. However, in one period of rehabilitation, therapists have to take a lot of time to guide patients to perform motion continuously and repeatedly. Therefore, the conventional rehabilitation is very laborious and time-consuming. Further, therapists' assessments of degree of rehabilitation are subjective, so that it is hard to objectively assess the degree of rehabilitation.